Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
In Mark 12:26-27, Jesus uses Old Testament Scripture to prove to the Sadducees that resurrection is real: “And as touching the dead, that they rise, have ye not read in the book of Moses, how in the bush God spake unto him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’ He is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living: ye therefore do greatly err.” Jesus speaks from the Pentateuch (the first five books of the Bible), which the Sadducees claimed as their authority. He shows them from Exodus 3:16 that they (including the chief priests!) did not understand God’s Word. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had died centuries before Moses, yet God said, “I am” not “I was,” indicating that these men of faith were alive when Moses wrote it and when Jesus quoted it, and are still very much alive in eternity. Jesus’ argument from Scripture is unanswerable: “the multitude… were astonished,” and He “put the Sadducees to silence” (Matthew 22:33-34). May we also be amazed at the complete character of our Savior God, and may we respect “the power of God” (verse 24) and know the authoritative “Scriptures” (verse 24) that tells us about Him.